Japan's Noda Shuffles Cabinet

By

Toko Sekiguchi

Updated Jan. 13, 2012 10:51 a.m. ET

TOKYO—Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda on Friday picked a ruling-party heavyweight known as a fiscal hawk as his deputy and removed two gaffe-prone ministers from their posts as part of a mini cabinet reshuffle.

In an attempt to push ahead with his unpopular plan to double the sales tax by 2015 to rein in the ballooning public debt—currently at around 200% of gross domestic product—Mr. Noda appointed Katsuya Okada, former...